


On a Blade's Edge

by SheelaNaGig



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AU, Casual Sex, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, F/M, Fucking on Fancy Furniture, Knifeplay, One Night Stands, Thom Rainier AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 07:04:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4295217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheelaNaGig/pseuds/SheelaNaGig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thom Rainier AU<br/>All paths teeter on the edge of blade. Instead of remorse, Captain Thom Rainier choses ambition. Yet dueling fates seek to embroil the unsuspecting Herald of Andraste in the conspiracies of an extravagant empire built upon deceit. Love is the last thing Lady Trevelyan was looking for. But a fling with a rakish Orlesian Captain might just be worth the trip to Val Royeaux.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Man Behind the Golden Mask

**Author's Note:**

> Scumbag brain: refuses to provide material for OC, but knocks out 4500k words for Rainier AU fic. *reedy sigh* and forgive me, but my lore is a tad rusty!

Something about Val Royueax always rubbed her the wrong way. Lady Nymeria Trevelyan remained uncertain which was to blame: her obdurate Marcher pride, or the deceptive facade of gilt leaf adorning every cornice to conceal the inherent filth beneath. Both probably. But as the newly dubbed Herald of Andraste, her travels depended on the whims of her advisors. She had to admit that Val Royal, as cloying as an expensive trollop dipping her fingers in your coin purse, offered plentiful comforts as opposed the rustic, war-ravaged wilderness she’d trudged around for weeks prior. 

The only pleasurable part of the sprawling Hinterlands was a lovely cabin upon a lake. It’s owner had long since abandoned the property situated in a placid parcel of solitude. That cabin held her own little bastion away from squabbling templars and rabid mages. Her nights consisted of a roaring hearth, some roast rabbit, and a good book to keep her company. She longed to lock herself in her quaint cocoon beyond the responsibilities amassing heavier by the day. Elsewise she—and whomever accompanied her for the mission—were relegated to narrow canvas tents and the persistent keening of wild animals keeping her awake. 

Here in the city, the crush of gossiping courtiers and haggling merchants swelled in any scrap of silence left to fray in the streets. Debutantes in daring colors vied for her attention, either setting the latest fashion trends or merely flouncing the outrageous grandeur of the Orlesian upper class. Even their soldiers’ uniforms dazzled the straying eye with vibrant blues and gleaming golds. 

Val Royeux buzzed with centuries of restlessness ingrained within the imposing alabaster walls. Not even ten minutes upon her arrival and Nymeria was embroiled in a painfully public dispute with templars, fielded an invitation to a chic ball outside the city, had an arrow bearing a riddle shot at her, and finally stumbled upon the leader of rebel mages outside of a weapons shop.

And to think Nymeria used to grouse about her life as Ostwick nobility being boring.

“Sometimes I wish you just left me shackled in that cell,” she said to Cassandra and rubbed the impeding migraine from her temples. 

“Perchance the Maker works in mysterious ways,” the Seeker advised in her reticent, priggish manner, yet the words stuck in back of Nymeria’s clustered thoughts. 

Even that evening after she parted from her retinue, Cassandra’s words pertaining to mysterious impulses echoed in the closed room of her mind. Nymeria strolled down Val Royeaux’s main avenue, ignoring the flashy silks festooned from colonnades and rolling her own reflections in her head. Wasn’t mystery suppose to be fun? A daring and naughty enigma like these masks the Orlesian guards wore. Such circumspect apparel piqued her curiosity. 

The concept that these garish military men were solely defined by their swaggering bravado fascinated her. Nymeria dwelt on the various soldiers she passed, judging them by the way they carried themselves. A tilt of the shoulders and perhaps the errant lock of hair exposing the only clues to the identity below. Something seductive called to her in the darkness of their enigma, that beguiling fascination which typically led her down paths left unventured.

Shaking off the lurid pondering, Nymeria took a table at an open air bistro and ordered Ostwick sweet purple wine on the Inquisition’s tab. Hey, there were some perks to this title and she’d bloody well use them. For nearly an hour she sat in the corner, watching the merchants and nobles whisper over the small tables and light the twilight air with their raucous laughter. Women chatted away, looking askance from their porcelain masks at other tables and dropping their voices to conspire. A quarrelsome couple broke off their engagement and reinstated it several times over a five course meal. As devious the Orlesians may be, observing them awarded an peculiarly droll entertainment. Amid the couples and chattering tables, her own solitary circumstance began to gall her. Nymeria ceded another thought to amending her loneliness. 

One man. One night. She’d done it numerous times before. Why not see what Orlais had to offer?

Maker’s mysterious ways enacted and a burly soldier in an Orlesian dress uniform strode through the tables, the eyes behind his gleaming mask undeniably locked upon her. Either this night was about to get interesting or someone supplied another task to jot on her list. She quaffed her drink in bated anticipation.

The soldier halted next to her table, standing at average height if she ignored the lofty crest of his golden mask. He borne the faded scents of fresh tobacco and cedar beneath Orlesian spices, dominating the small space around them as though he commanded it.

“May I join you, my lady?” he inquired. Only the words wafting from the mask arrived in velvety Marcher as opposed to rich Orlesian. 

Nymeria arched an eyebrow. “A Marcher in the Orlesian army?”

Though obscured by the mask, she detected a charming smile flashing beneath the metal shell. “Orlesian born, but reared in Markham. We are both a long way from the Free Marches, Lady Trevelyan.”

“And there’s the other the shoe clunking me upon the head.” Her mouth twisted and she swished another sip of wine in her mouth, savoring the nuances before business infringed upon her stolen leisure. “Alright. What is it? If it’s another bloody soiree invitation, it better be issued from Empress Celene herself. Elsewise the answer is _no_.”

He emitted a terse sound, perhaps a humored snort had he appeared less refined. “Not at all. I merely wish to buy a beautiful woman another drink if she deigns to accept my company.”

“Depends on whom my prospective company is?” Nymeria gestured her glass towards him. 

The soldier made a sweeping bow. The gesture bent so deep that the arming sword affixed to his belt pointed upwards at the bistro awning. Hints of sable hair escaped from beneath the gold. “Captain Thom Rainier, a loyal servant of Duke Gaspard de Chalons.”

Captain Rainier didn’t wait for her permission before pulling up a chair across from her.

“If what I’ve heard through the grapevine is true, then you definitely aren’t carrying any messages from the Empress,” she said, an oblique reference to Orlesian civil war currently raging over banquet tables and battlefields alike. “Quite the provocative alignment given you’re practically sitting in the Celene’s lap in Val Royeaux.”

“Proactive proclivities lay the foundations of the Great Game, Lady Trevelyan.” He sipped wine the color of blood through the slot in his mask. Drinking in a mask? She assumed such skill was a necessary asset in Orlais. Just as important as deftness with rapier and smooth cunning. “And if they killed Orlesians for expressing dissent, the alabaster walls would be stained with blood. And do you know how difficult blood is to clean off something as porous as white marble? I’d sooner earn the ire of the servants over the Empress’s loyal hounds.”

“Mmmm,” Nymeria pressed her mouth into a thin line. “So if you’re not here to ask for my help, then what do I owe the pleasure of your self-lauded companionship? A simple drink seems trite.”

“Beautiful noble women shouldn’t drink alone,” he said slyly, sipping his wine. “Don’t you know there are scoundrels about? Blackguards set to entice ladies of fine breeding with honeyed words and poetry. Those dastardly rakes who desire nothing more than divest noble women of their virtue for another foothold in the Great Game.” He reclined back and stared out the narrow eye slots, the hard stare belying his insouciance. “Or worse. Perhaps they mean to cut down the Herald of Andraste before her influence spreads.”

“Fortunately, Captain Rainier, I am poor in my virtues and proficient in blades,” she said. The nonchalance of his words meant to disarm her, but she consciously noted the dagger strapped to her thigh and the secondary blade wedged in her boot. An assassination attempt would sure liven up her evening in the worst way. “And forgive my homespun Marcher ways, but a man in a mask hardly cultivates a trustworthy persona. How am I to know _you_ are not one of those daggers in the dark raring to slay me?” 

“Because I’m of the raffish scoundrel stock.” The heat of his cocky smirk beamed behind the mask. “And I’d be lying if I claimed your professed lack of virtue didn’t entice my interest.” 

Raw male hunger seeped through the gold mask. That indisputable desire endorsed his honesty better than all of his arrogant guile. Still, she longed to see what lay beneath his gilt exterior. Probably a man so insufferably vain she’d seek to scuff the ostentation of his burnished surface and drag her nails against the wood grain beneath.

“Lift up your mask, Captain Rainier,” she bade as though she were Empress of Orlais. 

Running his white gloved finger around the rim of his wine glass, Captain Rainier contemplated her demand. After interminable seconds which might have ended in unsheathed blades, the soldier raised the chin guard of his mask, revealing the broad, ruggedly handsome face below. The curve of his sensuous lips belonged to an unapologetic rake. The type of raffish man who went through women as one plucks wild flowers. Older than she previously assumed, Rainier struck his forties but remained well kept. He wore his flamboyant uniform like hewn wood wears lustrous varnish. Every contradictory facet beckoned to her. From the thick brows, to the sinfully cruel curve of his bottom lip, even the shadow of stubble sprouting so long after his morning shave. The skewed bridge of his nose remained a single glaring imperfection, vaunting an old injury but captivated her curiosity with rugged allure. 

Frost blue eyes locked on her, smoldering with promises—and perhaps warnings— of a night she’d not soon forget.

Unmasked Capatin Rainier carefully slipped his fingers over the tablecloth, grasping her hand and bringing it to his mouth. Satin lips brushed her knuckles, abandoning them with a warning nip of teeth. All while those icy eyes fastened upon her.

Without surrendering to eddies of giddy infatuation, she extracted her hand from his, ignoring the faint stirring in her womb. Nymeria was no blushing spring maiden. Her arousal pruned superfluous blushes and untenable naivety. She had shed idyllic aspirations of romance the hard way: on shards of youth’s broken heart. 

A single look conveyed an entire negotiation without pandering or ingratiating flattery. They both knew what this was.

“Come to the Rampant Lion,” she said and downed the last of her wine. “Fourth floor. The Ostwick noble’s suite. Near midnight.”

“Is that an order, Lady Trevelyan?” 

“Not an order. An offer. Take it or leave it. Just don’t expect me to wait all night.” Nymeria stood up, her chair grating the paving stones. She turned from him, refusing to sneak one last glance over her shoulder as she sauntered back into the swallowing din of the streets.


	2. Steel and Silk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bitemarks and weaponry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ****Mild knife play warning for this chapter****   
> No blood letting.   
> Also, why do I write so many words?

This was reckless, risky, and just as likely to end in clashing daggers as it was to end in sex. So why did such a lurid gamble feel so invigorating? 

Nymeria padded over the pristine floor boards cut from the finest spruce. The commodious suite was a far cry from the dingy inn rooms and garrets she’d bedded in during the journey to Orlais. Every aspect this room evoked open space and clean light. Now that night pressed against the mullioned window panes, candles illuminated the airy bedroom, their amber light capering upon the white walls in taciturn delight. It would have been romantic if she hadn’t personally sworn off such a tawdry notion. 

For someone who shunned courtship, Lady Trevelyan was dressed more courtesan than casual. Nymeria utilized any chance to dress up, sick of padding herself behind light armor coated in other people’s blood. Tonight a beautiful frock of creamy lavender draped over curves left unappreciated for too long. Wearing nothing underneath except the dagger strapped to her leg, she relished the giddy thrill of cool satin whispering over her bare arse. She’d also broken out her seldom used makeup pallet to paint her lips and shade her eyelids. She might even smell of jasmine. None of this preening for _his_ benefit, mind you. But if she intended to take someone to bed after months of inadvertent celibacy, Nymeria was going to look bloody stunning doing it. 

Likewise she prepared her quarters as she prepared her face. In her caution, daggers stashed in snug hiding spots beneath cushions and strapped under tables. Nymeria learned exactly who she propositioned from a chattering retinue of debutantes ensconced in the Rampant Lion’s dining room. This Captain Rainier was everything he claimed: a loyal and _infamous_ servant of Duke Gaspard with a penchant for bravura and a taste for other men’s wives. His notorious proficiency with a rapier whetted by the stone of his incorrigible ardor. A downright dangerous individual and known blackguard.

Regardless of the peril, Nymeria still opened her door to him. Peril never looked so dashing. 

Shame the man had to hide such good looks behind a mask and that bulky uniform. Now he stood in her doorway impeccably coiffed save for a single lock dangling along his temple, his short black hair grown just long enough to tie back. A blue silk tunic billowed and cinched in all the right places, emphasizing the pure immensity of his impressive physique. As if he couldn’t fluster a woman further, Rainier somehow poured himself into the tightest breeches seen outside the Orlesian brothels. The man dripped in silken sin and coarse sexuality. So charming he nearly distracted her from his danger…until she spied the studded leather sword belt cinched about his trim waist. 

“Afraid of me, Captain?” she said, keeping the door open as narrow as possible.

“Val Royeaux is an entirely different beast after midnight, my lady.” He patted the pommel of his sheathed arming sword. “Not as groomed or docile, but feral and hungry to spill blood in her gutters over a coin pouch or expensive boots.

“Take off the sword belt and hand it over.” Her words tempered hostility but steeped in emboldened expectation of his compliance.

Rainier smirked, looking down his nose as though her boldness amused him. Flippant cur. Nymeria almost slammed the door in his handsome, smug face. But after a protracted battle of piercing stares, his hands hands settled upon the silver belt buckle and he yielded to her. She stashed the sword belt inside a foyer cabinet intended for boots and cloaks, reveling in the buzz of small victories over proud men.

“Now you have me at a disadvantage, Lady Trevelyan,” he said. His own eyes passed over her body with gimlet scrutiny, searching for weapons and appreciating her curves in one sweep. 

Nymeria doubted he’d surrender his only weapon. She’d wager on a baselard tucked in his riding boots or a bollock dagger sheathed at his back. Fortunately, men of his stock were apt to let ladies to put their hands on them.

She pounced on Rainier the second the door locked, shoving his bulky shoulders and knocking his back to the wall as her mouth slanted over his. Questing hands appraised and frisked his hard body, finding no other weapons sheathed in his breeches except the rigid bulge twitching against her mound. He wedged in a few muddled syllables, but she silenced him a with a harsh nip of teeth on his bottom lip. Nymeria tasted blood. She savored the pained grunt as he drew back from her with hiss. Rainier pressed his fingers to the wounded lip and brought them back spotted with crimson.

“That’s the way of it then?” His glib voice reduced to a menacing rasp. 

There was no romance in this. No poetry or contrived plays for power. Not even a strand trust. He could be any man, but she chose him.

Fortunately, the Captain mounted no protest or pause to their ardor. Strangely, the bite seemed to enliven him. He gathered her in his arms, his teeth scraping her own kiss swollen lips. But instead of exacting a retaliatory nibble, he thrust his tongue into her mouth, blotting out the taste of all her other lovers. Traces of copper, whiskey and dry wine dandled over her tongue, flooding her veins with red hot intoxication. Strong, capable hands groped her hips before cupping her satin covered arse. Maker, his smoky scent packed a heady wallop. Within a few fleeting gropes, he wrested control, squishing her breasts against the wall as he rucked up the satin dress. 

Cool air kissed her exposed backside before he kneaded her plump cheeks. The Captain scolded her with a lusty chiding. “Tsk, Lady Trevelyan. You appear to have forgotten your smalls. Certainly such a lapse in dress is entirely unladylike.”

With her cheek pressed to the wall, Nymeria swore at him in an entirely unladylike fashion. He chuckled in response to her indignation, bending to bite the fleshy slope of her rear, compelling her deeper into abandon. As if to give the wound succor, Rainier licked the stinging blossom of a bitemark and stood up.

A booted foot kicked her satin slippered feet apart. Unashamed, Lady Trevelyan leaned into the touch of calloused fingers dipping into her sopping quim, hungry for intimacy long denied to her. She felt his rapier-sharp grin unfurl against her nape, but his reedy breath proved as unsteady as her own. The soldier and the rouge stood unduly close considering each other’s lethal skills. Nymeria knew exactly how dangerous having a scoundrel like Rainier at her back was, but this hazard augmented her lust.

“You’re so fucking wet for me, Lady Trevelyan. Let us not waste time with decorous prattle,” he growled hotly in her ear. Rainier ground his rock hard bulge in the cleft of her plump derriere, the laces straining over his arousal. “Do you want this? Have you been thinking about this since you left me sitting at the bistro earlier this evening? I know you left me hard as tempered steel.”

“I didn’t invite you here for frivolous banter, Captain,” she sniped. “Are you going to fuck me or bore me to death with your continual fumbling at seduction?” 

An impatient rustle and hiss of opening laces came as his only retort. Fury and lust radiated over her back. The man probably wasn’t used to being belittled by potential lovers. 

Good.

He freed himself, stroking his cock and smacking it on the small of her back. Electric warmth coursed below her skin when that velvety tip skimmed her naked arse, leaving a faint smear of precum. She tried to push off the wall, to move this carnal deed to the bed, but Rainier pinned her wrists, trapping them in his much larger hand. 

Unable to turn around, Nymeria gasped as an alarmingly fat cockhead stabbed through her yearning heat, stretching muscles which had only accommodated less endowed lovers. He burned inside of her, euphoric and excruciating at once. Maker, this was exactly what she needed. Ecstatic keening joined his labored grunt, the unbridled force of his entrance nearly knocking the air from her lungs. 

“Fuck, love. So fucking tight your strangling my prick. Don’t they have cock this thick in Ostwick?” he gloated, dragging the meaty shaft from her overwrought quim before surging back inside her. Thick fingers abandoned her wrists, delving into nether curls to toy with the swollen pearl of her womanhood. A fine tremor wracked up her bowed spine.

Grasping to regain control, she shoved off the wall and into his unyielding chest. Silk whispered against satin. The Captain snaked a brawny forearm across her stomach, tugging down the collar of her dress and spilling her breast for his eager fondling. Greedy fingers pinched her sensitive nipple, lancing heat from the buds and inspiring another mewling of raw desire. 

“Too much bloody fabric,” he swore, impatiently yanking her dress and freeing her other breast. “I’m going to rip this blasted frock off of you.”

“Don’t you dare!” she hissed, her hands fumbling behind his head to tangle into the sleek pony tail gathered there. 

“You’re well off, Lady Trevelyan. What’s one ruined frock to a highborn woman like yourself?” he spoke to the rasp of tearing stitching and ripping satin.

“Ugh! Swiving brute!” Nymeria squirmed to free herself from his implacable grip. Her heels landed a few kicks to his shin, but he refused to relent.

“Swiving brute? Careful what you ask for, love.” Both arms banded tighter round her torso, clutching her back flush to his chest as he speared her with the hammer of his hips. Wet smacks of flesh mingled with her cries for more, for deeper and harder, encouraging him to pummel her womb as the Qunari battered the walls of Ostwick. Each staggering heave jolted her so high her slippered feet left the floor, reducing her to the mercy of his strength alone. 

His overwhelming ardor pounded her feminine softness, winding release low in her belly. Nymeria’s own fingers quelled the strident pulsing in her neglected clit. Rainier grunted something about her being lovely and filthy before sucking her earlobe. Only few flicks and rapture sizzled and spiraled as she peaked. Her convulsing body embraced him as gently as a vise while she damned and praised him with incoherent wails.

“Maker’s balls,” he gritted out, his cock jerking before he spurted a hot flood deep in her quim.

After she’d wrung every last drop from him, Rainier set Nymeria on shaky bare feet. Somewhere in the midst of their frenzied swiving she’d lost her slippers. Cool wood greeted her naked toes, a contradistinction to the Captain’s hot breath panting down her neck. He laid his sweaty forehead on her shoulder and dribbled spend on the back of her satin dress. Slowly, his arms retracted from her waist. Rainier stumbled backwards, huffing from exertion. 

Slightly dazed, Nymeria eyed him through heavy-lidded slits, basking the pleasant, dull soreness which followed good sex. The posh soldier was a vulgar sight to behold: expensive clothing mussed and untucked. The flushed battering ram of his manhood withering back into his foreskin. Noticing her gawking, Rainier composed himself by raking back his shoulder-length hair, unconcerned how his limp cock remained crudely exposed. 

She emitted a gusty little sigh, pulling the torn fabric over her shoulders. “Not a bad, Captain Rainier. Most common men lose their balls when bedding a noble woman. It’s adorable at first, but ends up being bloody annoying in their caution.” Her pointed gaze slid southernly to where his heavy testicles hung. They glistened in the mixture of her nectar and his spend, a testament to his virility. 

The Captain barked a pompous laugh. “You think you’re the first highborn cunt I’ve ever swivied?”

Quick steps closed the gap between them. In lieu of a slap, Nymeria tangled her fingers in sable hair and tugged his head to the side, savoring how his frost blue eye glittered with malice. “No. But don’t be daft enough to lump me in with those pretty little porcelain dolls of the Orlesian court.”

“Awfully mouthy for someone with my seed running down your legs.” Intrigue muddled the flicker of animosity in his clear eyes. “Although I must say, no other noble woman I’ve swived has worn blades to bed. Or is this just for my sake?” he retorted slyly, running a finger down the concealed dagger strapped high on her leg.

“Soldier such as yourself doesn’t get this far in life or in rank without learning to stash a secondary, perhaps even tertiary blade,” she pointed out, releasing his hair and stepping away. “Let’s not kid ourselves, Captain Rainier. We both know there’s only one way to prove you’re fully disarmed.”

“Lady Trevelyan, are you trying to get me naked?” His eyebrows raised in mock scandal.

Staring daggers of her own make, Nymeria rolled her eyes and doffed her ruined frock. An appreciative male sound rumbled in Rainier’s chest, invoking an appetite that even the blade affixed to her thigh couldn’t spoil. Such ravening focus shot an odd thrill shot through her aching core.

“Now quit playing coy and strip,” she bade.

Moving with the hauteur of an empress, she sashayed to the sumptuous _méridienne_ , a lounging furniture of Orlesian design, and reclined upon it. Nymeria laid bare, fondling the hilt of her sheathed dagger. She nibbled her bottom lip as she watched him disrobe. Blue silk fluttered to the floor, revealing the furry expanse of contoured male torso. A faded Orlesian army tattoo inscribed upon his left pectoral beneath the coarse chest hair. Captain Rainier had taken measures to keep from going to seed in his middle age. Hardly a spare once of fat clung to his brawny upper body when most men contented to let themselves go soft. Yet no amount of training could mend the slew of faint silver scars slashed across his tanned skin. Most of them were too thin to be from the battlefield.

“Rapier slices,” he explained, inferring from her odd look. “Not sharp enough to cleave a man, but bloody annoying all the same.”

“Andraste’s fine arse,” she spoke, astonished. “How many duels have you been in?”

“About as many times as a husband learned I’d made him a cuckhold.” He grinned, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “No wine is as sweet as that which belongs to another man.”

Captain Rainier kept gloating to distract her, but Nymeria paid extra attention as he stripped off his tall riding boots. The soldier took special care to keep the boot upright and set it down as such. Aha! She had been right about the dagger sheathed there. The sight of him peeling off his breeches was just as sweet as her apt assumption.

When he finished stripping, Rainier lifted his arms from his sides to show he had no weapons. “Happy?”

Nymeria stuck up her nose and twirled her finger.

The soldier scoffed but spun in a leisurely rotation. “If you expect me to bend over and spread my arse cheeks, you’ll have to pay extra for that.”

Biting back a giggle, she crooked her finger, granting silent permission to approach. 

“Now,” he said, standing completely at ease in his nudity, “Where were we?”

Nearly six feet of ferocious male prowled towards her, ghosting his wandering touch up her calves and lingering over the thigh sheathe buckle. Rainier made short work of the lethal accessory, dropping it to clatter behind the _méridienne’s_ backrest and onto the floor, safely out of either person’s reach. Little did he know about the _other_ dagger stashed beneath the long cushion Nymeria lazed upon. But that was her little secret.

In unexpected tenderness, Rainier raised her toes to his mouth, drifting hot kisses along her instep and roaming up her toned legs. Soon his mouth ambled across naked thighs, lingering on the indentation left by the sheath belt. For all his carefully restrained ardor, a twinge of ferocity occasionally fled. A scrape of teeth over her knees here, a nip on the tender inside of her supple thigh there. This was not the worship of supplicant, but the restrained hunger of a wild predator tasting his prey before striking. Abruptly, his head dipped down. 

Smooth cheeks grazed the juncture of her legs where his seed gleamed in a wet smear. Captain Rainier dove between them unperturbed, lavishing a moment of soft nuzzling before suckling her distended clit. Black silk tickled her in light tease. Soon Nymeria’s heels dug into his bare shoulder blades with each rut of her hips. She sobbed when the adroit tip of his tongue slid beneath her hood, massaging the hidden part of her favorite little organ. 

This unruly outcry seemed somehow worse than when he impaled her on his prick. Her thighs shook and trembled around his face regardless of how she steeled them. Brittle oaths slipped past her lips before her mind approved what was being said. She might have even begged. The swiving bastard had unraveled the last scrap of her precious dignity.

Brazen, cocky, a veritable scoundrel, but Andraste’s arse Captain Thom Rainier gave good head. 

Gazing over her belly unabashed, eyes the color the coldest glacier flared in latent fire. Past lovers patronized her with a few half-hearted licks, the barest effort to make her ready for them. But not Rainier. He cupped her hips, raising them off the _méridienne_ and to his luscious mouth as though quaffing his favorite libation. His ministrations accelerated, precision honed, until he slammed her over the precipice harder than before. Exquisite bliss exploded and discharged shockwaves from her molten core all the way into her toes. Nymeria’s back bowed, her heart hammered so loud in her chest it almost drowned out her ribald cries. She cursed and praised him as her nails gouged angry scratches in his shoulders. 

By the time the throes of orgasm waned, he’d resumed his quest of kisses along her stomach, smearing her nectar upon her skin, raking his teeth over every scar, reveling in the marks which had repelled other lovers. 

“You were right,” he purred against the slope of her breast above a sizable scar puckered across her ribs. “You are unlike any of the fragile, porcelain cunt I’m used to bedding. You’d not break so easily, but when you do, it’s worth the toiling.”

Dazed, she fumbled through her orgasm-bereft lexicon and came up woefully unprepared. Instead of teasing her, Rainier knelt between her spread thighs, stroking his revitalized prick in his large hand. The nest of dark curls at the base of his prick grew flecked with a generous amount of silver. She idly wondered if he dyed the hair atop his head.

“This time I want to watch it,” he growled and pinned her knees to her shoulders. “I want to see that beautifully stony face crumble as you take my prick inside you.”

Trapped between the backrest and the naked granite of his burly body, Nymeria owned the fleeting sense of capture. While her helplessness was a ruse, the prospect excited her.

True to his wish, the pleasure showed unflinching on her face as he guided his astoundingly thick cock between her thighs. His glans nudged apart her plump folds before pushing into her snug body with torturous leisure. Because of their prior bout of sex, her flesh yielded easier to his hardness. Fuzzy thighs bottomed out against the slope of her backside and he sheathed to the hilt. Their joining looked far more uncomfortable than it felt, but still he stretched her to the limit of endurance. Nymeria could only imagine the dismay of any woman breaking her maidenhead upon _that_. 

Yet the arrogant Captain’s own riveting pleasure written on his face. Black brows cast shadows over his half-lidded eyes, but the thin snarl tugging his lip told her all she needed. A woman’s quim was the sweetest shackle known to man and his enraptured face brandished that exquisite anguish. 

Again he drove into her with the severity of a blacksmith’s hammer. A brusque hand cupped her breast, fumbling up her décolletage until Rainier’s wandering touch grasped her throat. It took only the slightest pressure of his thumb to release an icy spate of panic. Startled, Nymeria drew the dagger from beneath the cushion and held it to his neck in one fluid movement. Rainier went as stiff as a corpse above her.

Cool metal gleamed against his tanned flesh, skin so thin she noted the accelerating pulse leaping in the hollow of his throat. A vulnerable network of arteries and tendons strung beneath that thin flesh. Judging by Rainier’s wide-eyes, she’d gotten the drop on him. Nymeria decided she quite enjoyed his fear. 

And if the throbbing prick buried between her legs was any indication, he did as well.

“I wasn’t going to strangle you. Just thought you might like that rough sort of play,” he clarified, his hand warily drifting from her neck. The Captain raised both his palms beside his head. “See, my hand’s off your neck. So remove the blade from mine.”

“Perhaps I want to watch your face,” she said, refusing to lower the blade from below his jawline. “Did I tell you to stop fucking me?”

His prick twitched again. Hips stuttered back to life, careful of every movement to keep from jostling the blade’s edge into his throat. Truth be told, it was a rather dull dagger, but he didn’t have to know that. Instead of senseless rutting, the knife at his throat forced patient, shallow thrusts, stimulating that sweet spot just past the inside of her entrance. 

She threw the blade away when her arm tired, letting it skid across the smooth floor and clatter beneath the bed. Rainier clamped a paw behind her neck. A pulse of cold dread told her he was about to finish the fell deed he intended all along. Gritting his teeth, he yanked her against him by an inexorable fistful of hair. Her legs clamped around his hips for leverage as reared back on his haunches. His involuntary delay of fervor disappeared with the discarded blade. Now he redoubled his thrusts. He bucked between her legs as though he meant to cleave her in two. Rainier’s fingers bit in bruising hunger into her buttocks, impaling her on his manhood with the brutality previously denied to him. 

And Maker’s breath it was hot.

Fevered flesh slicked against his hard body as he bounced her upon the pillar of his cock. Whatever feeble mewlings or encouragements stifled in the rough plunder of his mouth abrading hers. Coarse chest hair prickled her nipples, the scorching friction enough keel her into a third, all-encompassing orgasm. 

Rainier followed on her heels. He nestled his face in the juncture of her throat. There was no guttural _Maker’s balls_ this time, but a primal roar of completion as he ground his hips into the pummeled cradle of her thighs. 

The combative lovers tumbled back upon the _méridienne_ in a sweaty, weary heap as they came down from the stars with ragged breaths. The humid air stank of raw sex and she felt him shrink inside her sore body. 

Beleaguered by the days journey and exhaustion, Nymeria felt herself sliding into the drowning deaths of slumber. The exhaustion of good sex trumped her vigilance of a man sprawled atop her who could very well slit her throat while she slept. Whether it be survival instinct or restlessness, the Mark churned beneath the skin of her hand. She sensed the flickering vortex, the sensation as though the entire universe tried to pour itself into her body. Green sparks crackled and faded, but not without leaving a cold green glow suffused over the back of her hand.

A larger palm cradled her own as gently as one holds a smoldering coal. Curious, Rainier propped himself on his side. Keen wonderment flashed in his eyes before dimming to something more analytical. “Does it pain you?”

She laughed, a shaky little peal to dispel nerves. “Usually the first question out of people’s mouths is what can I do with it. Or how lucky I am to be blessed,” she scoffed. “Or they simply sneer and call me a charlatan. Toss up really.”

That seemed to amuse him, but her never took his eyes of her hand until the soft glow faded. “Tis how the world works, Lady Trevelyan. The people praising you are blind to your pain until you’re broken, til they use you up.” He squeezed her hand in an oddly friendly gesture. “And as for the jealous rabble, nothing inspires another man’s ire like a blessing not bestowed to he himself. A sea of hungry eyes are locked upon you, waiting for you to fall off the plinth as though they hadn’t been shoving it from below.” 

“And just what would you do if you had this power?” she humored him. “Live like an Emperor of conquered Thedas with an impressive and insatiable harem?”

He gave her the same droll look he’d given when she demanded his sword belt. “Not at all. I’d let the whole fucking world be swallowed.”

After several minutes of exploratory fondling, Nymeria reached around his hip and pinched his fuzzy buttock. “Pour me a glass of wine.” It wasn’t a request.

“Why should I?”

“Because I’m the one with the glowy hand that does things.” 

He scowled but obliged, pouring from a bottle of Orlesian red sitting on the table. After handing her a goblet, he made to pour his own before she halted him. “Did I offer you a drink?”

“Forgive me, but a man works up quite a thirst.” He rubbed at his throat. “Especially after you had me convinced I’d never taste wine again.

“You want to celebrate? Then go to a tavern,” she said, pulling a dressing gown around herself. 

“Does the lady tire of my company? Thought we could go for an even three a piece.” He gestured down to his flaccid penis. 

Nymeria glowered at him and strapped the thigh sheath back on her leg. “Go to a tavern with strumpets if you want that last orgasm. At least they’d pretend they were eager to suck your cock.” 

“Now, now. Don’t go falling in love with me, Lady Trevelyan.” He smirked with a languid stretch. Concluding the night was over, Rainier plucked his breeches from the floor and rucked them up his hips. “It’ll only end in heartache.”

“Yes. How I pine for your love,” she spoke dryly. Nymeria strode about tidying their mess, most notably throwing the tatters of her dress over the wet spot soaked into the _méridienne cushion._ “But how shall I go on? To be faced with the cold reality that you love the sound of your own voice better than any woman.”

“Women come and go, but I’m stuck with Thom Rainier for the rest of my life. T’would be a pity if I despised myself,” he explained, tucking himself back in his breeches.

Nymeria’s womb ached with cramps and his seed slicked with each step. The musky sweat unique to Rainier clung to skin. As arousing as it was a few minutes ago, she found the aroma repugnant in her post-coital clarity. All she wanted right now was a hot bath and glass of wine to erase the flavor of him from her mouth. Captain Rainier fulfilled his purpose for the night so it was time for him to leave…whether he wanted to or not. 

He hadn’t even finished tucking in his tunic before she was steering him towards the door.

“Not even a goodbye kiss?” he said and she shoved his sword belt into his arms. “You may never see me again, Lady Trevelyan.”

“The Maker can only be so gracious.” She shut the door in his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Blackwall in my other works is nowhere near as cut as Captain Rainier at the same age. While I prefer the softer, stouter Blackwall, I can't see someone as narcissist as Rainier comfortable with aging gracefully. Not to mention Orlais is an incredibly shallow society obsessed with extravagant beauty.
> 
> 2nd Author's Note: It's implied Blackwall slices off his Orlesian Army tattoo in my other stories.
> 
> Last Author's Note: Thom Rainier POV in the next chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope to have the next chapter up tomorrow night as it's 80% completed. All I have to say is that we will witness an entirely different beast from the Blackwall we know and love.


End file.
